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Thu, 08/28/2014 - 12:11 -- abc_admin

Most visitors to South Sudan are likely to go to Juba, the capital. There are certainly plenty of good birding opportunities around Juba as described in a recent article by Mark Mallalieu - see ABC Bulletin 20(2) pp 156 - 176. In total, 323 species were identified over a two year period within a radius of 50 km of Juba. These included 8 species of conservation concern and 27 biome-restricted species. Juba lies on the west bank of the White Nile, some 127 km north of the Uganda border. The areas visited include the Juba Game Reserve within which is an IBA, Jebel Kujur. A further IBA, Badingilo is 60 km north-east of Juba, and just outside the survey area.

The Sudd must hold vast concentrations of waterbirds and the highest population of Shoebill Balaeniceps rex but access is presumably extremely difficult.

The following description from Samuel Baker’s trip to discover the source of the Nile in 1863 might be of interest. "There is no more formidable swamp in the world than the Sudd. The Nile loses itself in a vast sea of papyrus ferns and rotting vegetation, and in that foetid heat there is a spawning tropical life that can hardly have altered very much since the beginning of the world; it is as primitive and hostile to man as the Sargasso Sea. Crocodiles and hippopotamuses flop about in the muddy water, mosquitoes and other insects choke the air, and the Balaeniceps rex and other weird waterbirds keep watch along the banks — except that here there are no ordinary banks, merely chance pools in the forest of apple green reeds that stretches away in a feathery mass to the horizon".